Bittersweet

I finished this book about a month ago, and I absolutely loved it!  I'm not entirely sure how to classify Bittersweet - perhaps non-fiction and a tad bit autobiographical.  I don't normally read non-fiction books because they seldom hold my attention (I swear, I'm like an ADD 5th grader...) and reading more than a few pages is a tedious chore.  But this book was different.  As I read, it was less like reading a book than it was like reading a series of personal letters or journal entries.  This casual and personal approach totally sucked me in and I felt like I was really getting to know the author.

Bittersweet is about life's changes - some we can control and many we have no say in (mostly those...they usually suck more).  She relates her own personal experiences to truth that applies to everyone.  She talks about having faith and being angry with God.  She talks about how life always comes after death, spring always follows winter, and there is always promise and hope, even when that is the least believable thing at the moment.

Each chapter isn't necessarily a continuation of just one story (although as you read and get to know her better, she ties certain events together or brings old events into a new light); it's more like a different snippet of her life with a similar over-arching theme that tidily ties the whole thing together.  I guess that's what makes it seem like reading a collection of letters or journal entries and, in my personal opinion, makes it unique.

Having read this almost immediately after going through some pretty big and devastating life changes myself, I felt a renewed sense of hope and even felt that I had found a friend, a kindred spirit who has gone through something similar but has made it out alive.  She is able to put words to feelings that I am sure most of us have, but are clueless when it comes to verbalizing them.

I would definitely recommend this book, especially for the ladies in their twenties and thirties.  (Not so much the guys.  They'd probably get bored.)  She has another book titled "Cold Tangerines" and I hope to read that one soon!